Page 20 of Temporary Santa's Knotty Workshop
Oh, he was going to get a spank on his butt for that. I followed him, leaving Merih and Chester to whatever they were doing. Chester really needed to find an alpha to keep him in line, maybe two. And I needed to get Willy not to blame me for the naughty elf’s shenanigans.
I followed Willy to the elf lounge. It was empty, but the place smelled of fresh coffee and peppermint sticks. It hadn’t been empty for long.
“Campbell, you weren’t scheduled to tour the workshop today. You’re supposed to be checking over the list in Nick’s office.” He didn’t even meet my eyes.
“The list can wait. I wanted to find you.”
“Seemed to me like you found plenty of elves to entertain you. You don’t need me.”
Ah, my little elf was jealous. I had suspected so, but this confirmed it. That was a good thing, though, right? It meant on some level he cared? At this point I was going to hold onto any positive thing I could.
“Willy, don’t be like that.” I took a deep breath. “Sorry, no, that’s not what I meant to say. I came to find you. I ran into Merith to ask where you were. Chester came up and started flirting. I did not flirt back, at least I didn’t mean to. Why did you leave this morning?”
Words were coming out so quickly I’d be surprised if anyone would’ve been able to keep up, but I hadn’t wanted him to interrupt me. I had a lot to say.
“I had to work.” Willy folded his arms over his chest. He still wouldn’t look at me.
“But why didn’t you stay with me? Why didn’t you wake me or leave a note? Snowdrop missed you.” Was it a low blow to use the dog? Absolutely, but my heart was racing and desperate to fix this.
“I’m sure Snowdrop is just fine. Look, last night—”
I put a hand over his mouth. Was it a dick move? Absolutely. But I didn’t think I could survive hearing him say he regretted what we did.
“No, it wasn’t a mistake. It was perfection. It was amazing. It was us. It was everything I wanted it to be. Please don’t tell me it was a mistake. My heart can’t take it.”
“Really?” His eyes softened and a bit of the armor he wore chipped away.
“What will it take for me to prove to you that I’m serious?”
“Maybe not flirting with Chester and everyone else.” His hands formed two fists at his hips, and he walked out the door.
Shockingly, it felt like progress.
Chapter 11
Willy
I was being ridiculous. I knew that I was being ridiculous. Was it fun to be so self-aware that I was sabotaging a relationship before it even started? No, it absolutely sucked. I hated every minute of it. Could I stop myself? Equally no. It was like creating a train wreck in slow motion and ignoring every single danger sign along the way.
For the rest of the day, I dove into my work. I wasn’t going to let this situation with Campbell distract me from what needed tobe done. It couldn’t be that I was using work as an escape. No, definitely not that.
After unraveling the issue in wrapping, I headed to the next crisis of the day. We were having the exact opposite problem in the ropes section. They weren’t knotting. That took longer to get through, probably because I kept thinking about Campbell’s knot inside of me every time someone mentioned the word knot.
Just when I thought things were settling down, all the dildo molds seemed to have something wrong. Not the same thing, either. No, that would be too easy. Before I managed to get that taken care of, the lube clogged the system. Come to find out it was extra dense and more like a putty than a lube. Super not helpful. An entire batch had to be thrown out, and we had to clean out all the equipment, which meant we’d be down for the rest of the day. Fuck my life!
The place was a mess. It was like the workshop decided to match my personal life in energy.
Everything seemed to be going wrong all at once. If we didn’t meet our goal, it would be entirely my fault. Nick and Percy trusted me, and I was letting them down in an epic fashion.
Not only that, but horny adults around the world would wake up to empty stockings and Christmas magic would take a huge hit.
Campbell had done nothing but be supportive, and everything was still falling apart. Me not wanting to work beside him because I couldn’t handle my feelings wasn’t helping thesituation. Nick and Percy would know what to do, but I couldn’t call them. We hadn’t really hit the emergency part yet, even if it had been as easy as picking up the phone.
“I give up.” I jammed a handful of gumdrops into my mouth. It was time to call uncle.
I stood in Nick’s office, looking for any hint in his paperwork on what to do about any of these messes we were currently working through. At best, I’d managed to put band-aids on them, and that wasn’t going to do with the holiday rushing toward us.
Production was slowing down to a near halt, and I had no idea what to do. Plus, avoiding Campbell, when really I needed to let him know that there were issues going on, was only making things worse. Technically, he was in charge. It was time to put on my big elf hat and suck it up.
